EYEWEAR FASHION BLOG

Eye Love Earth Day

Happy Earth Day, everyone! We know that the choices we make directly affects the state of our environment, which is why it’s so important to make even the slightest adjustments to our everyday lifestyle. You can help reduce your carbon footprint by rockin’ an awesome pair of eco-friendly specs or shades. This doesn’t mean that your style has to get all crunchy-granola-ish. Instead, we have a selection of go green eyewear that will not breach your fashion conscience.

Natural, sustainable bamboo and nickel-free, hypoallergenic “green metal” set the green standard in Barbara Creations’ ECOspex and ECOshades readers. Magnivision creates their Green View readers by FGX from 100 percent recycled materials and dispenses them in a renewable fiber case. ICU Eyewear also raised their tree-hugging flag by using reclaimed plastic and acetate in their readers.

Sports brands are also boarding the Mother Nature bandwagon and coming up with alternatives to raise awareness. Oakley offers a new eco-conscious Bob Burnquist Gascan frame made from excess materials from the manufacture of other eyewear. A portion of the proceeds go to the Action Sports Environmental Coalition. Relying on a different method, Optic Nerve creates their FORESEE collection from 100 percent castor bean oil and refrains from using petroleum-based products. Performance eyewear brand Revo also depends on castor beans and recycled pre-consumer polymer resins for their upcoming Alexandra Cousteau Signature Sunglass Collection. The new line will be sold exclusively on Amazon.com (starting today!) and $20 from each pair sold will benefit Blue Legacy International.

Other major players in the eyewear industry have come up with creative ways to save the planet. Kenmark Group uses thin sheets of recycled wood pulp laminated into an acetate temple and biodegradable demo lenses made from corn for their eco-friendly Jhane Barnes’ specs. MODO, on the other hand, crafts their The Greenest Glasses on the Planet collection with 95 percent recycled stainless steel and plastic. For each pair sold, one tree is planted through the One Frame One Tree initiative. The castor oil technique used by Optic Nerve is also shared by Von Zipper’s Shift into Neutral collection and Juicy Couture’s Choose Green shades by Safilo Group.